A passerby at a soccer tournament stopped, turned around, and came toward me.
“Well,” he said, “Did you drink the Kool-Aid?”
I imagine this sounds cryptic, but it wasn’t. Here are two clarifying details:
1) It was August in Michigan.
2) I was wearing a Detroit Lions jersey.
***
We spend our autumn Sundays, each Thanksgiving, and the rare Monday, in the throws. We visit Ford Field; we stare at our televisions. Sixteen times every fall, we participate, identify, and scream — sometimes with joy, usually in pain. We are offsides; we are injured; we shake our heads and curse ourselves for wasting a perfectly good afternoon on this ridiculous team. Occasionally, we win, and we shake our heads just the same. We are being strung along. Stupid Lions.
Winter brings the playoffs, and we watch numbly, from afar. By the second round, we’re adopting a team. The Super Bowl is played. We don’t wonder when it will be our turn. We have no dreams for our future. It’s February, the mercifully shortest month, the worst month. Our hearts and road conditions unite: we are cold, iced over. We are sick of winter and done with football.
The rash among us disassociate and make vows: they will never watch another Lions game until that team proves their worth. These rash might get teased a little, about jumping off the bandwagon, but mostly, everyone nods.
***
Come March, the roads thaw. We joke about the draft, how it’s our Super Bowl, the one benefit of mediocrity. We remind each other of draft years past, the bad decisions, the promising picks made of glass. Someone brings up Randy Moss, whom we passed up in 1998, or All-Big Ten, All-American receiver Charles Rogers, drafted in 2003, out of the league 3 years later.
Draft day comes. Some people host parties. Most everyone keeps an eye on the ticker, even the rash. We collectively try not to buy into anything, but a small voice whispers, “Did you see who we got in the first round?”
***
We catch a little coverage of mini-camp, not on purpose of course, and note who has shown up, who has lost weight, that the rookies seem to be behaving themselves. We speak in clichés and we hedge and nobody minds: the coach runs a tight ship, but so did Bobby Ross. That wideout has great hands, but who’s gonna get him the ball?
The off-season surgeries are deemed successful, and we the fans seem to be on the mend.
Those who heal first begin sentences with the word “maybe.”
***
The summer finds our recovery progressing. We sit in camp chairs, around fires, and forget.
Who was it that kept jumping offsides?
He didn’t drop that many balls.
What was our record last year?
Is it those starlit nights, or is it the sunshine, sand, and chlorine? The month of June generates a lovely wave of amnesia, a selective amnesia that forgets Gus Frerotte and holds fast to Billy Sims and Chris Spielman and Barry Sanders.
***
The players report, and their practices make the news. One story shows a boy running onto the field, holding the helmet of a player, beaming. His dad chokes up. Times have been hard, he says. He’s talking about losses beyond football, we know — money and jobs and housing, but his son and this sport remind him of something good. Joy?
The preseason begins, and we all remember that lowest year, 2008, when we won the preseason and lost every game thereafter. The preseason doesn’t mean anything, we know, but we go to the first game. We cheer and holler and gesture for a coach’s challenge when a call doesn’t go our way. We laugh because we know it doesn’t matter, but we can’t help ourselves. We sing the fight song, a tune somewhere between “Hail to the Victors” and “The Dating Game,” at least six times that night, once for every score.
The second preseason game is on the road. We give up a lot of points in the first half, but come back in the second. The waves of amnesia crest more quickly now; overnight, we forget the first two quarters, remembering only the win.
We drop the term preseason. The third game, nationally televised, versus New England, is a sellout. We’ve got plans to be at a soccer tournament, but we’ll find a way to see a little American football. It is still only August.
***
We leave the park for the night and watch part of the game over dinner. The Lions win. The preseason ends and we are 4-0. We set aside the shame of 2008 and remind ourselves that we also went 4-0 in 1993. We won the division that year, we tell each other with an exclamation point, completing our recovery. The once rash return to the bandwagon.
We joke as far as the Kool-Aid goes, but this isn’t some cultish death march. It is a game after all, one with faults and flaws, but also the great catch, the trick play, the fake punt: unscripted moments made of skill and good fortune. In football, life begins anew in September. We choose to risk the pain and savor the hope.